in our lesser institutions. Take, for instance, our city
government. A few decades ago our cities were so notoriously misgoverned
that they were the scandal of the world. Our boards of aldermen or
councilmen, representing ward constituencies, with all sorts of local
strings tied to them, were clumsy and unwieldy and easily subject to
corruption.

So, about twenty years ago, all across the country went the cry, "Get a
good mayor, and give him a free hand." That is the way our great
industries are conducted: a wise captain of industry is secured and
given full control. Being a practical people, and imagining ourselves to
be much more practical than really we are, we said, let us conduct our
city business in the same way. Why not? Plato showed long ago that you
can get the best government in the shortest time by getting a good
tyrant, and giving him a free hand.

There arc just two objections. The first is incidental: it is
exceedingly difficult to keep your tyrant good. Arbitrary authority
over one's fellows is about the most corrupting influence known to man.
No one is great and good enough to be entrusted with it. Responsible
power sobers and educates, irresponsible power corrupts. Nevertheless
we pay the price of this error and learn the lesson.

The other objection is more significant. It is the effect on the rank
and file of the citizenship, for the meaning of democracy is not
immediate results in government, but the education of the citizen, and
that education can come only by fulfilling the functions of citizenship.
Thus it is better to be the free citizen of a democracy, with all the
waste and temporary inefficiency democracy involves, than to be the
inert slave of the most perfect paternal despotism ever devised by man.
Thus the movement away from democratic city government is gravely to be
questioned, no matter what economic results it secures.

The same argument applies to more recent changes, as the commission form
of city government. As in the previous case, reacting upon the
scandalous situation, we said, "Let us choose the three to five best men
in the community, and let them run the city's business for us." Nearly
every time this change has been made, the result has been an immediate
cleaning up of the city government; but why? Chiefly because "a new
broom sweeps clean,"--not so much for the reason that it is new, as
because you are interested in the instrument. You can get a dirty room
re